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Want Security? Make The Switch

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the plus-it's-just-nicer dept.

Lord_Slepnir writes "Security firm Sophos Security has released a report claiming that Macs will be more secure than Windows for some time to come. The report listed the 10 most common kinds of malware, and noted that they can only infect Windows systems."

3 of 549 comments (clear)

  1. vista might be semi secure until... by insanemime · · Score: 0, Redundant

    I have messed with vista and they tried to do a MAC thing by making the system stop when you try and change something with the system and having you click continue to verify that you actually want it changed. Good idea, except that it prompts you on EVERYTHING. Change your screen saver? HALT..VERIFY. Want to check network connection setting? HALT...VERIFY. I think this will end up getting really annoying and people will disable it (like we did with the test of vista beta).

  2. Stupid Argument by the+linux+geek · · Score: 0, Redundant

    What really irritates me is people saying "Oh, Windows is more widely used then UNIX, so THAT's the only reason it's less secure." The fact is that a huge majority of servers run UNIX/Linux then Windows, and said UNIX servers are far more secure then Windows ones. (I speak from experience, as I administer both UNIX servers and Win2k3 ones.)

  3. My own list... by CODiNE · · Score: 0, Redundant

    This is what I use to explain to people why Macs ARE more secure than running Windows.

    Ways Windows gets you hacked/virused/etc...
    1) Auto-run on CD's
    2) IE flaws
    3) Outlook flaws
    4) Services running by default
    5) Trojans
    6) App buffer overflows

    On Macs
    1) No Auto-run on CD's. You have to go and find the app to run it, which is why those Sony DRM-infecting CD's didn't actually nail any Mac users. Nobody bothered to run the app and install it. (There was a Mac version on the CD)
    2) You can argue that Safari and Firefox will be just as bad as IE, but for now they both have been doing better and avoid major architectural flaws such as ActiveX and being deeply embedded in the OS.
    3) In Apple's Mail.app pictures display as pictures, apps are attachments, etc... takes extra effort to run a trojan, but that's #5
    4) By default on Macs no servers at all are running, whereas on Windows you must manually shut down a LOT of them.
    5) Trojans will always be a problem unless perhaps companies start using Intel's method of running apps inside a sandbox VM or something.
    6) Not much I can say here, Linux and some BSD's I'm sure are way better in this with random offsets in their mallocs, and I'm sure Apple could do something similar.

    Okay so 4 out of 6 simply do not apply to Mac users, and the other 2 are fundamental problems that will most likely always be around.

    --
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